The U.S. Army's chief of staff told Congress on Tuesday that the service is making significant investments in future camouflage technology designed to mask heat signatures given off by soldiers and vehicles, a feature that will hide them from enemy sensors.

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky, wanted to know more about what the service is doing to develop Advanced Camouflage Technology, a capability he characterized as critical to the Army's success in a conflict with a near-peer adversary.

"It's not as glamorous as the Next Generation Combat Vehicle or
Abrams tank upgrades ... but can you talk about the importance of advanced camouflage and concealment technologies, especially in a combat environment where we don't necessarily have dominance in the air ... and we are not able to operate out of fixed operating bases?" Rogers asked.

Milley agreed that advanced camouflage technologies will be needed if units are going to survive on the future battlefield, which will be a "highly lethal" environment where "units will be cut off and separated" from one another.

"Advanced camouflage technologies are critical; we are putting a fair amount of money into advanced camouflage systems, both individual, unit, vehicle, etc.," he said.

While he didn't say how much research money is budgeted, it will fall under the service's air and missile defense modernization priority, Milley said.

Future camouflage will have to hide the heat and electromagnetic signatures that humans, vehicles and other systems put out, he added.

"We know that adversary [target] acquisition systems are very, very capable in that, if you can see a target with precision munitions, ... you can hit a target," Milley said. "So camouflage systems that break up electronic signatures and break up heat signatures are critical."

In this May 28, 2019 file photo, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban group's top political leader, second left, arrives with other members of the Taliban delegation for talks in Moscow, Russia. (Associated Press/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - The Taliban have sent a delegation to Russia to discuss prospects for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan following the collapse of talks with the United States this month, officials from the insurgent group said.

The move, days after President Donald Trump canceled a planned meeting with Taliban leaders at his Camp David retreat, came as the movement looks to bolster regional support, with visits also planned for China, Iran and Central Asian states.

Per his final demands, Joe Heller was laid in his casket Thursday in a T-shirt featuring the Disney dwarf Grumpy and the middle finger of his right hand extended. He also told his daughters to make sure and place a remote control fart machine in the coffin with him.

Laced with bawdy humor, the irreverent but loving obit captured Heller's highly inappropriate nature and his golden heart, friends who filled the fire station for a celebration of his life on Thursday evening said.

A 19-year-old man who planned a July mass shooting at a West Lubbock hotel that was thwarted by his grandmother was upset that he was considered "defective" by the military when he was discharged for his mental illness, according to court records.

William Patrick Williams faces federal charges for reportedly lying on an application to buy the semiautomatic rifle he planned to use in a shooting, according to a federal indictment filed Aug. 14.

He is charged with a federal felony count of making a false material statement during the purchase of a firearm on July 11, a day before he planned to lure people out of a hotel and shoot them. The charge carries a punishment of up to five years in prison.

A photograph circulated by the U.S. State Department's Twitter account to announce a $1 million USD reward for al Qaeda key leader Hamza bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, is seen March 1, 2019. (State Department via Reuters)

Reuters) - Hamza bin Laden, a son of slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and himself a notable figure in the militant group, was killed in a U.S. counter-terrorism operation, the White House said on Saturday.